Page 17 of Zero Pucks Given
“Yeah, sure, I guess. But when a woman looks like this?” He barked a laugh. “I can ignore all the other bullshit.”
“Then you’re welcome to date her,” I replied. “I’m just glad it’s done. Now I can get back to focusing on myactualjob.”
Except it wasn’t over.
Not even close.
9
Josie
“I’m just glad it’s over,” I told Sharon.
Rather than going home, I’d had the team driver drop me off at Sharon’s apartment. She poured me a beer while I filled her in on how the night had gone. Her eyes got progressively larger until the end of the story.
“I know fame turns people into assholes,” she said. “But I didn’t expect it to bethatbad.”
“Told you so,” I gloated. “You said it would be fun.”
“At least you got paid for it!” she said. “If I had ten grand for every crappy date I went on, I’d be a rich woman. How was the food? I’ve been hinting to Kyle that I want to go to Carlo’s for my birthday.”
“I didn’t stay long enough for the main courses, but the salad was amazing. And we ordered a bottle of wine that cost seventhousanddollars. Like, a seven with three zeroes behind it.”
Sharon gasped. “You let me serve you Shiner Bock after drinking wine that costs more than my car?”
“Here’s a secret. I couldn’t tell the difference between that wine and the five dollar bottles I buy at the grocery store.” I took a long pull ofmy beer. “This tastes much better to me.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
I shook my head. “No. What’s crazy is being so rich that you can afford to spend thousands of dollars on wine.”
“Amen to that,” she said, clinking her glass to mine.
The front door opened, and her boyfriend Kyle strode inside. He did a double-take when he saw me. “Hi, Josie. I thought we were watching a movie tonight, babe?”
“Movie night is canceled,” Sharon said. “Josie is telling me about her awful date.”
“You can’t talk about that tomorrow? We had plans.”
Sharon grinned. “Josie was on a date withGrayson Steele.”
Kyle gasped. “Holy shit, really? Like, the captain of the Surge?”
“The one and only,” I replied.
“You’re so lucky!”
“So I’ve been told,” I said dryly. “I don’t want to interrupt your plans. You two have fun. I’ll tell you the rest at work tomorrow.”
“But now I want to hear about it,” Kyle said. “Where did he take you? Did you get to see where he lives? Did you two hook up? I’m not saying I want to know how big Grayson Steele’s penis is, but I don’tnotwant to know how big it is.”
“He was an asshole,” I said. “You don’t want to know.”
“Aw, man,” he said. “Never meet your heroes, I guess.”
I took an Uber home from Sharon’s place and went to bed. But I struggled to fall asleep. I was still all wound up from the date with Grayson. I kept replaying the evening in my head, reliving every insult and argument.
The part that bothered me the most was when he called me out for checking him out at dinner. I shouldn’t have gotten such a long eyeful. Honestly, that’s what pissed me off the most: Grayson wasn’t just anasshole, he was avery attractiveasshole. He was hot shit and he knew it.
